


A lofty moment

by joannereads



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Fluff and schmoop, M/M, a little look into the future
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:34:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27082015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joannereads/pseuds/joannereads
Summary: Steve misses flying, but his life right now is great and he's happy - so happy. With Danny in his heart and home, what more could he ask for? Then Grace calls with a delightful surprise!
Relationships: Steve McGarrett/Danny "Danno" Williams
Comments: 14
Kudos: 116





	A lofty moment

**Author's Note:**

> I know it's Whumptober, and normally I can torture either of these boys pretty well, but maybe something in me knew that in between all the angst and pain of Whumptober, readers might want a little saccharine goodness to take the edge off. Cur future McDanno!

A lofty moment

“What is it? What’s bothering you?” Danny asks and Steve stares someone forlornly over the ocean and towards the horizon. Steve looks over to where Danny is slumped in the chair. The years have been kind to him, and since their joint retirement in 2020, they’ve settled into a calmer life. Matching tattoos twist around their ring fingers, two lines as intertwined as their lives have become. When Steve returned from his world-trip sabbatical from life, he got down on one knee at baggage claim and told Danny he couldn’t live without him any longer. Danny laughed, cuffed him around the ear, called him and idiot and kissed him like his very existence depended on it.

Charlie caught the whole thing on camera, sort of. In his excitement he forgot to hold the phone up properly so much of the event is audio only with incredibly shaky footage of Honolulu International Airport’s floor. It’s become tradition to watch the video on their wedding anniversary, the whole ohana crowding around the television and laughing while Charlie, now almost twenty, tries to blame youth and excitement for his filming faux pas.

Danny’s hair has paled, and thinned a little, but he still keeps it closely shaven on the side. Steve loves the feel of it beneath his fingers, and the contented hum he gets from Danny when he does it is a wondrous thing. His eyes are still sharp, even if he wears glasses for reading (and sometimes driving and watching television – but he doesn’t like to discuss it), and after some pretty intense PT after that last case, he’s pretty fit and healthy too.

As is Steve. They work out together, eat together, don’t get shot at ever (except for that one time they somehow got mixed up in a bank robbery, and Tani had laughed and laughed when 5-0 turned up to diffuse the situation only to find Steve and Danny marching the perps out of the bank to applause from the rest of the customers. She asked if this meant they were finally going to come back, but Steve had gripped Danny’s hand tightly and said categorically no, and they went surfing and out for dinner and home to bed without even discussing it.

Steve’s PTSD hasn’t improved over time, but he manages it better now than he ever did. The dreams are less frequent, but smells and sounds will trigger flashbacks and he finds them overwhelming and eerie in a way he never did before. Too much loss and death and destruction. But Danny will sit and list the names of the hundreds of people Steve helped keep safe, people they know and have interacted with, as well as those they don’t and may never. The whole damn world, as far as Danny is concerned anyway, is safe because of what Steve gave up. Steve reminds Danny almost as often that he didn’t do it alone, and that there are many names in his list who Danny himself is responsible for saving.

But today, Steve is affected by his past in that way. He is feeling melancholy though, wistful almost.

“Did something happen at work?” Danny asks, prodding for more information in a way that Steve knows will become endless if he doesn’t start talking.

“No, work was good and the kids are really coming on.”

Steve teaches Phys Ed at Kukui High. To say the school was pleased to welcome back the former alum was an understatement, and Steve suffered through endless interviews with local press as well as assemblies, lunches and even one rather miserable black tie dinner when he first took up the post. Now, he coaches and develops the athletes at the school, and is rewarded every day by their respect and their commitment. Plus, he ran the school’s security protocols and the place has never been safer, so that’s pretty good too.

“How was work for you?” Steve asks, and Danny rolls his eyes at the obvious segue.

“I am not going to fall for that, Steven. Something is bugging you. Come on, spit it out.”

Steve laughs and grabs Danny’s hand, twining their fingers together and squeezing gently.

“I guess, I was sitting here and I realised that I miss flying. After I got shot, I didn’t relish the idea of being in small planes and hated that flight to Europe with Harry. But now, I miss the blades and the air of being in a chopper. Stupid, I know.”

“It’s not stupid, babe,” Danny says, returning the finger squeeze. “It was a huge part of your life. It makes sense that you would miss it.”

“Thanks,” Steve says, his smile soft and fond.

Three weeks passes and life continues as normal. Danny trains HPD officers by day, and at night he is an attentive partner and an awesome dad. Then Grace’s call comes in, her face smiling but her eyes wary.

“Hey, monkey. It’s great to see you!” Danny effuses as Grace’s face shines from the laptop screen. He and Steve sit at the dining table, as they do every Sunday morning to facetime with her. She feels so fa away, even though she’s only on Molokai. “How’s work?”

“Erm, work’s been good,” she says. She works for a marine ecology charity, and Steve is just as proud as Danny. He forgets that she isn’t _his_ sometimes, his love for her as soul-deep as Danny’s.

“Gracie, what’s wrong?” Steve asks, because something is clearly not quite right.

“I should have known you’d notice,” she says with an affectionate huff. Steve smiles right back, because he wasn’t Naval intelligence for no reason. “Okay, but you can’t get mad, okay?”

“Why would we be mad?” Danny asks, though his tone is clearly already mad. Steve squeezes Danny’s forearm and smiles.

“Just tell us,” Steve says, reassuring and gentle, while his hold on Danny tightens a little more.

“It was totally a surprise, I had no idea, but something was off and—” She takes a deep breath but Steve can see where this is going and he feels excitement bubbling within already. “I’m pregnant. You’re going to be grandfathers.”

Danny is unusually silent and Steve turns to look at him, only to see an impossibly-bright smile splitting Danny’s face from ear to ear.

“A Pop-pop, I’m going to be a Pop-pop?” he eventually gasps.

And then he goes full Jersey on them.

Grace is still laughing about her father’s exuberance as she signs off the call, wishing Steve luck with managing his over-excited husband. And Danny is buzzing all night. He calls all their relatives, their Ohana, everyone. By 11pm, they are both exhausted but excited.

“What will the baby call me?” Steve wonders quietly into the darkness of their bedroom.

“Whatever you want, babe,” Danny says softly as he maps Steve’s chest with his lips and tongue and breath. There is very little conversation after that, just happiness and tenderness and togetherness.

Two more weeks pass, and Danny calls Grace daily to see how she’s doing. The morning sickness has stopped her swimming, and she won’t be able to dive for a while, so she’s picked up more clerical tasks and is working on a research paper. James, her partner but not-fiancé much to Danny’s chagrin, is excited but cautious because she’s barely twelve weeks in and tired. They can tell he’s looking after her, but they are feeling the miles between their two little Pacific islands.

Then Danny has the most wonderful idea.

He grabs his cell phone and disappears upstairs to their room, throwing together a couple of weekend bags as he makes their plans. When he bounds downstairs, Steve is finishing up the dishes, stacking the crockery away neatly in the cupboards.

“Come on, we’re heading out,” Danny says, tossing the bags near the front door and beginning to close up the doors to the lanai and lock the windows.

“Are we? Where, pray tell, are you dragging me off to?” Steve glances at the bags as he asks, and feels way more hopeful than wary.

“You’ll see,” Danny laughs, dragging Steve out of the door and towards their car. The Camaro disappeared shortly after they retired, and as Danny’s knee and Steve’s back got worse with time, they realised his truck wasn’t great either. So, their black, mid-sized Suburban does the job now. Danny expertly steers them through traffic and towards the North Shore.

When he pulls into the private airfield, Steve glances over and begins to look a little confused. This wasn’t the romantic getaway he thought they were having. Danny just slides out of the car and grabs his bag, waiting for Steve to catch up.

“Mr Williams?” the man calls as they approach. He’s maybe early thirties, tanned, strong arms. Steve knows he’s admiring him, much more openly than he used to before Danny reminded him it’s okay to be Bi, okay to be gay, okay to admire. Just not to touch – he belongs to Danny and Danny to him. Danny glances at him and chuckles at Steve’s open admiration before hitting him affectionately in the chest with the back of his hands.

“That’s me, and this is my partner and pilot, Commander Steve McGarrett.” They all shake hands while Steve grins at Danny’s use of his title. He will throw it around arbitrarily, or when he wants to use it for something.

“The bird over there is yours. Your flight plan has been logged and your fuel topped up. We’re expecting her back Monday morning.” He walks away briskly and Steve spins to look at the helicopter that had been indicated. She’s blue, sleek looking, and gleaming in the Hawaiian sunlight.

“Where am I flying you to, then?” he asks, deliriously happy and still confused.

“Molokai and our baby girl,” Danny says with a you-should-have-figured-this-out-by-now expression.

And Steve had, mostly, but he wanted to hear it.

When they are in the air, soaring over the ocean, Danny relaxed by his side in a way he never seemed to be when they were on the job, Steve realises he did miss this. He missed flying. He missed the power in his hands and the wind in his hair. He missed endless ocean below him and endless sky above him. But he also realises it was about missing a part of his life he thought he had lost. The past that scarred him also moulded him, made him the man that Danny loves, made him the man that Grace admires, made him the man his kids at work respect. This part, the part that knows how to fly helicopters and speak many languages and recognise almost any kind of gun ever made, that part is important to him. But it’s okay to let it retire too. He’s changed now, grown into the coach and husband he is, and into the Gramps he’s going to become.

Danny glances over and grins.

“Whatcha thinking?” his voice crackles through the headphones.

“How much I love our life,” Steve answers honestly.

“So that grin isn’t about the helicopter, then?” Danny teases.

“Well sure,” Steve laughs, “that’s pretty great too.”

Six months pass, and Steve and Danny fly back to Molokai to meet their grandchild. Steve’s hands are shaky on the yolk, Danny’s all nervous energy in the seat beside him, and their future is a brilliant river of happiness stretched out without end before them. There will be more grandchildren (despite what Grace said after the fifteen hour labour she just went through), and there will be more flights and more drives and more nights together.

Steve can’t ask for anything more.


End file.
